An internship is a great way to kickstart your career. It gives you the chance to take on real-world challenges, apply academic knowledge, and accelerate personal and professional growth. This Summer, Focus BC had the opportunity to provide this experience to Tomás Pedrosa, current member of JUNITEC, a student-led organization we established a partnership with earlier this year. Tomás quickly became an important part of our team, working on projects that not only helped him develop his skills but also made a real impact on a volunteer initiative in Colombia. In this interview, Tomás shares his experience, the challenges he faced, and the lessons he’ll take with him as he moves forward in his career.
1. What motivated you to apply for an internship at Focus BC, and what were your expectations going into it?
I learned about Focus BC through the partnership established between JUNITEC, the Junior Enterprise I am part of, and Focus BC. During the partnership launch, there was a presentation and workshop at our university, Instituto Superior Técnico, led by Vasco Pinheiro and Mário Sobral. The session, intended for JUNITEC members, introduced us to the new partner company and how to use one of its products, Mapify. I was very impressed with the presentation and everything they shared about the company's environment, core business, and the product itself.
I felt that Focus BC would be a great place to further develop my skills as a future Computer Science and Engineering Master’s student. So, after the presentation, I approached Mário and asked if it would be possible for me to do a summer internship with them. He was very receptive, and things moved quickly from there.
When I discovered that my objective during the internship would involve supporting a group of volunteers from Colombia, I was really pleased with the idea of gaining experience in my field while also making a real impact on other people’s lives.
2. Can you describe the project you're working on, and how it contributes to Focus BC and the Colombian Volunteer Organization?
The project I worked on during June and July aimed to assist the APCV Volunteer Group (Asociación de Profesionales Cívicos Voluntarios) by improving their daily operations through the use of simple, user-friendly tech, particularly leveraging Mapify, a Focus BC product.
The APCV helps local public services with different types of incidents, from car crashes to fires. They work in teams and communicate via radio, using the WhatsApp location-sharing feature to be aware of each other's whereabouts. A dispatcher, in direct contact with public services, gathers information about where the volunteers' assistance is needed, coordinating their response. Incident information was being manually stored in a Google Sheet.
My task was to make their workflow smoother. I developed two apps:
Incident Synchronization App: This app synchronized any incidents added to the Google Sheet with Mapify. When the dispatcher added a new incident to the sheet, it would automatically appear on Mapify with the correct coordinates, allowing the dispatcher to easily visualize incidents across the city and manage the volunteers more efficiently.
Volunteer Location App: This web app allows volunteers to share their live locations on Mapify. It also enabled them to update their status during their shifts, so the dispatcher could monitor both incident locations and volunteer positions in real-time, all through Mapify.
3. What has been the most challenging part of your internship at Focus BC, and how did you tackle it?
The greatest challenge I faced was learning how to deploy a product according to company standards. I earned my Bachelor’s in Biomedical Engineering, having only transitioned to the Computer Science area for my master’s. Therefore, I realized I lacked knowledge about the quality standards required for company-level products.
That was not only the most challenging but also the most important thing I learned during the internship, and I have to thank Mário for not going easy on me in that regard!
"My favorite part of the internship was, for sure, the company’s atmosphere. Everybody was extremely helpful whenever I needed assistance, whether it was something to do with cloud deployment or debugging." Tomás Pedrosa, Intern at Focus BC
4. How has your experience at Focus BC influenced your perspective on technology and entrepreneurship?
Throughout my university journey, I’ve always wanted to be closely connected to the entrepreneurial ecosystem. That started when I joined JUNITEC’s Innovation Department in 2022, and the sentiment has only been growing ever since.
This summer further strengthened my passion for entrepreneurship, as I saw firsthand how technology and innovation can create real value and positively impact noble causes like those of the APCV volunteers.
Plus, the fact that the path of entrepreneurship is fun, dynamic, and far from repetitive is also important to highlight.
5. What advice would you give to someone new to using Mapify, based on your daily experience with it?
It is a powerful platform with an unfathomable number of possibilities yet to be explored. My main advice would be to start by reading the documentation attentively, in order to understand its basic functionalities. Once you grasp those, start experimenting. There's no better way to learn Mapify than by actively using it and testing out its features.
"This summer further strengthened my passion for entrepreneurship, as I saw firsthand how technology and innovation can create real value and positively impact noble causes like those of the APCV volunteers." Tomás Pedrosa, Intern at Focus BC
6. What has been your favorite part of the internship, and what advice would you give to future interns at Focus BC?
My favorite part of the internship was, for sure, the company’s atmosphere. Everybody was extremely helpful whenever I needed assistance, whether it was something to do with cloud deployment or debugging. I feel like I learned a lot from this experience, and I was able to put into practice everything I had been learning up to this point while also learning how challenging it is to develop software with more of a “production mindset” rather than an “academic” one.
My advice for any future interns would be to dive in, enjoy the experience, and try to learn as much as possible from everyone in the company, as they have much to offer to junior developers.
7. Given your keen interest in cinema, if you could describe your internship experience at Focus BC using a movie title, what would it be?
I might go for Inception—layer upon layer of tech challenges, from syncing incidents to mapping volunteers in real time. Just like navigating dream worlds, I was diving into new levels of complexity, problem-solving, and learning, all while making sure everything worked smoothly in the end. A mental adventure, but totally worth it!
Tomás Pedrosa’s internship at Focus BC was a great mix of learning and making a real difference. By helping APCV, he not only gained new skills but also improved how the volunteer organization responds to emergencies.
Throughout the experience, he was mentored by our Technical Manager, Mário Sobral, who shares his insights into how the internship progressed and the positive impact it had on both Tomás and the team.
“It was extremely rewarding to work with Tomás through his internship, as he demonstrated a great approach by tackling new challenges with a calm determination and an impressive delivery ability. He quickly assimilated with our agile methodologies, tools and processes, and contributed in all the ceremonies as a fully integrated team member. Extremely fast learner and with a consistent positive attitude, Tomás has shown to be an amazing young professional!” Mário Sobral, Technical Manager at Focus BC
Curious about what Tomás worked on? Check out the blog post on how APCV is using Mapify to streamline their workflow: https://www.mapify.ai/blog/how-mapify-is-transforming-emergency-response-for-civicos-bogota
This internship highlights the success of our partnership with JUNITEC, demonstrating how collaborations between organizations like Focus BC and junior enterprises offer students valuable opportunities for career growth while enabling them to make a real difference.
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